MIA: Soviet History: Great Terror

Great Terror (1936-39)

Statistics based on archival sources, but nonetheless approximate numbers:(1)
Executed (1930-53): 786,098
Imprisoned: 3.5 Million
Death in prison and exile: 2 million


Primary and Contemporaneous Sources


The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre (1936) Moscow Trials
The Witchcraft Trial in Moscow, Friedrich Adler 1936
The Red Book: On the Moscow Trial (1936) Analysis of the first Moscow trial by Leon Sedov
The Zinoviev Trial, by D. N. Pritt K.C., M.P. (1936).
The Case of Leon Trotsky (1937) Testimony of Leon Trotsky answering the Charges from the Moscow Trials
A Study of the Radek-Piatakov Trial (1937). Gives a critical perpsective on the Moscow Trials
The British Stalinists and the Moscow Trials, by Brian Pearce (1958).
Execution of the Central Committee (image)
The Case of Bukharin (1938)
Behind the Moscow Trial (1936) by Max Shachtman


MIA Archives and Sources that are Related to the Terror and Purge Trials

Stalin Archive
Trotsky Archive
Critiques of Stalinism
NKVD


(1) The Road to Terror, Getty and Naumov, Yale University Press, 1999. Pages 587-594.